


Years I spent trying to forget

by Lilly_C



Series: Summer Mini Challenge [22]
Category: Sea Patrol (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Missing Scene, Past Child Abuse, Past Suicide Attempt, Talking, luxken27's Summer Mini Challenge, luxken27's Summer Mini Challenge 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-13 22:12:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16027010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilly_C/pseuds/Lilly_C
Summary: Removing her earbuds, Kate looked up to see the source of her distraction. “Yeah, RO, I do get it.”





	Years I spent trying to forget

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler for Precious Cargo, there are some references to past child abuse and past self harm. Written for the feel prompt on my [summer mini challenge](https://alittleimprobable.dreamwidth.org/236560.html) table. The title is from Dead and Buried by A Day To Remember. Any mistakes are my own and unintentional.

Kate was in the ship’s office, changing the playlist on her iPod once more while attempting to get through the seemingly never ending paperwork that came with being second in command.

“You get it X. You get why I reacted the news the way that I did.” Robert blurted out not bothering to be discreet with his intrusion.

Removing her earbuds, Kate looked up to see the source of her distraction. “Yeah, RO, I do get it.” Robert took her answer to be an invitation, entering the room, he took a seat across from her, anxiously glancing around in case he received a reprimand rather than a difficult conversation he’d never been able to have before. “But you have to understand that just because I know why you feel the way you do, doesn’t mean that I’m going to share things about my life with you.”

“Was your dad a mongrel too?” he asked, his forwardness still being something of an unnerving trait that she wasn’t yet used to. “The look you gave me when I tried to explain earlier, it made me curious and I couldn’t find anything out when I looked up your name.” 

“You won’t find anything,” Kate shook her head. “My case was sealed by the courts. It was my mum who brutalised me. My dad walked out when I was a kid, he took my brother with him. So it was just me and mum until she got hooked on the drink and I had to find ways of defending myself when she was in rage and those could sometimes start over the most trivial things. The worst beatings were always when she met some bloke in a pub who treated her like shit for part of the night and in turn she’d take it out on me.”

Robert quietly listened, noticing that at least one of the things she had mentioned during a recent steaming party was true, he was also appreciative that he now had someone who he could talk to about all of the things he’d been through without been judged because of the wretched upbringing he’d endured. “Was there anything that you’re mum did that scared you?” he enquired for reassurance because his own fears were sometimes mocked by others on the ship.

“Was there anything that your dad did that scared you?” Kate fired the question back as she had an answer but didn’t want to give it in case he perceived her as being weak.

Robert hesitated for a moment. “Confined spaces and needles. I got locked in a cupboard when I was six, the wood was rotting and the lock was busted but dad still managed to keep me in there for several hours until he passed out and the abrasions on my knees from repeatedly hitting the door while trying to get out eventually became infected, requiring me to have a tetanus booster. Since that day I've hated all confined spaces and if I’m in a small room I have to keep the door open for as long as I can. I've always had a morbid phobia of needles, I don’t think there was one particular thing that contributed to it but while the doctor was tending to my wounds and preparing the shots, my dad mocked everything that I was telling the doctor about my phobia and once we got outside he pushed me in front of a reversing car. He luaghed at the terrified driver and told me that was his way of getting me to _man up_ , whatever that actually means.”

Kate’s hand was over her mouth, shocked by the brutality the young sailor had gone through at the hands of his family.

“Your turn.”

Heaving a sigh, “Knives,” Kate said as she rolled up her sleeves revealing a multitude of healed and fading scars of various sizes. “One of the blokes that mum frequently brought home had a thing about knives and liked to cut people, he did some of these to me. I can sometimes still hear his callous laugh when I have nightmares and when I wake up I have to use a mirror to check that my scars haven’t reopened and aren't bleeding.”

“Who did the rest?”

“I did. In my misguided logic I thought that if I cut myself it would take the pain away and in a way it did because there was a relief that I hadn’t really had before but there was times when I'd cut for the sake of it as seeing the blood reminded me that I am alive.”

Taking off his watch, Robert partially pushed his sleeve back to reveal a long jagged scar on his wrist covering the length of the vein. “I almost died,” he stated while putting his watch back on and readjusting his sleeve. “My self harm scars are all on my thighs but there was one time in high school when I cut my wrist in the toilets because all I really wanted was to be free and put an end it all.”

“You’re still here.” Kate whispered, grateful to have finally shared a little from a closed off part of her past with someone who has also been through it.

**Author's Note:**

> Coming way late into this show means that I haven’t be able to find any reliable sources as to whether or not Kate’s mum was abusive and I have a feeling it may be a fanon thing. I certainly didn’t come across any references to it within canon and I’ve seen every episode multiple times.


End file.
